Seven Theories of Human Nature

Stevenson begins his short book Seven Theories of Human Nature with an overview of philosophy by way of a comparison of Marxism and Christianity. These two (often competing) worldviews have some things in common while they are diametrically opposed on the essentials. For example, Marxism doesn't just differ on Who God is, but instead says there is no God at all. One of the primary ways that one's sense of power and authority, personal behavior towards power and authority, and sense of justice or righteousness is shaped or formed by Stevenson's book is by a sense of the great conflict between ideas. Rather, people have ideas, and people have conflicts with each other because of the ideas they have, because promotion of a particular idea becomes more important than promotion of a particular person.

Plato taught the existence of "absolute forms" and compares these forms to the development of Euclidean geometry (29-30). In Euclidean geometry there are straight lines, even curves, and perfect circles, unlike nature. The facts of nature were seen as deviations from the rule of perfection that Plato felt must have existed in the absolute form. When Plato brought this to bear on human nature, he saw two principal facets of each human: the appetite and reason. The appetite drives a person to eat, which is good, but also drives a person to overeat for the sake of sensory stimulation. Plato then decided that reason was more perfect than appetite, so in his Republic the rule of the g

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theological assumptions: he assumed there is no God. For if indeed there is one, then all of his ideas fail. If indeed there is a metaphysical or spirit realm operating behind and with this one, then Freud had profoundly incorrect theories of what influences human hysteria, psychosis, and insanity. His basic tenet was, like Plato quoting Socrates, to "know thyself." Self-analysis would reveal the problems one had that derived from one's past and influenced one's present life. Stevenson (79) describes the ideal Freudian situation as one where the ego is in control of the id, because repressed memories are conscious. Government is affected if through this "cure" all people are more balanced and so act more rationally. This would constitute "justice" or "righteousness" for Freud. Not those terms as they are meant, but through his psycho-analysis an eventual absence of wrong. Sartre's atheism replaced obedience and righteousness with personal responsibility. Sartre insisted there is no God, and that left him with the question of where to obtain law from. Without meaning, purpose, or law (which society has generally derived from God's word) all is possible. Well, technically, anyway. Society would ultimately decide by majority vo

Category: Psychology - S